We just returned from watching The Avengers in IMAX 3D at Celebration Cinemas in Portage. The movie was still as top notch as the last two times we’ve watched it but this was mostly a back and forth for me because classically speaking, IMAX sets off my acrophobia.

My experience with IMAX is set up around the design that many of the early cinemas had, which placed the audience on a kind of escarpment at a sharp angle to the movie screen. Each row of seats top was at the bottom of the next row and vice-versa to the other row. This leads to a very steep sense to “stadium seating” and so became synonymous with the IMAX experience. I was sure the theater that they built would throw off my acrophobia and prevent me from watching the movie.

Turns out, when they built the theater in Portage, they elected to go with a more conservative, relaxed, laid out design where the rows are arranged not very much differently than I am used to with how the seats are arranged at the Rave downtown. Stadium style seats, yes, but not with a pitch so sharp. The pitch is more like a amphitheater than some sort of “trying to screw you” design that IMAX prided it’s earlier self on rendering. Perhaps it’s because this theater had to cope with 3D technology when it comes to playback that lead to the seats being oriented that way. For that I am grateful. The screen is imposing and beautiful and vast, but it isn’t enough to immediately cause me to flee in acrophobic terror.

That all being said, and the presentation was well worth the high cost, even still, there was one problem. The 3D was applied post-processing, essentially painted onto a 2D movie. Without natural 3D capture several scenes that I was presented with caused my head to hurt, my eyes to ache and my tear ducts to water. About halfway through the movie my eyes were in full rebellion, watering like crazy. I would have preferred the movie in 2D and frankly, I’m growing very tired of this 3D whizbang. Perhaps it shows off my age, perhaps my eyes aren’t as young and spry as they used to be, but I had a very hard time processing focus while watching that movie. I had to really concentrate to bring some scenes into focus when watching a movie shouldn’t require the audience to do anything actively. Just sit back and watch.

All in all, I can’t see going back to the IMAX theater for many movies, maybe only for very special ones. The Avengers is a special movie, perhaps The Hobbit, Dark Knight Rising, and Spiderman may be worth it. But I don’t know if my eyes will stop watering and if I’ll have a booming headache tomorrow after my system starts to return to normal after coping with what I was exposed to at IMAX.

It may be that IMAX is a young mans thing, and I’m fine with that. After what I saw and what I felt, I’m amazed that more people weren’t grabbing their heads and wiping their eyes right along with me.